


Tangled Webs

by wynnebat



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Casual Murder, Dubious Morality, F/M, Humor, Romance, Season/Series 02, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-18 23:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14224047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Mabel, Candy, and Grenda decide to lightly stalk Stan, ruining Darlene’s dinner plans.





	Tangled Webs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this fic, DesertScribe! <3

“You don’t believe there’s spider-people hanging around on the mountain?” Darlene asks, batting her eyelashes. She only has two eyes in this form, but she can see well enough that this man is _just_ her type. She’s already lured him up the sky tram—the slowest in the world, perfect for indulging in a little pre-dinner flirting—and now they’re on a bench deep into Widow’s Peak.

Her prey laughs, too loudly, but the sound is pleasing. Darlene decides she must be hungrier than she’d realized, since the man’s reply of, “Hah, spider-people! That’s just an urban legend,” is more amusing than offensive.

 _Mm, I’m going to have so much fun with you,_ she thinks, smiling and leaning in. A little closer and—

“They’re going to kiss!”

Her hearing is not as acute in her human form, these ears much less sensitive than the hairs on her legs, but those are definitely voices. Human voices. For a moment, Darlene wonders if she didn’t take her prey out far enough, but then there’s some high-pitched squealing about _Grunkle Stan_ and _true love_. Her prey hasn’t noticed anything about, but Darlene isn’t fond of voyeurs watching her eat. Perhaps she can even have a little feast, invite Granny Sweetkin. She always has the best web-spinning techniques.

After decades of living here, her web stretches across the whole of her mountain, filling the unseen nooks and corners and spaces between branches. It’s the work of a moment to reach behind herself and tug on a web, directing the force to the webs in the area she’d heard the sounds.

“Oof!”

“Ouch!”

“Oh no!”

There’s a nice weight to those tasty bodies as she shoves them out of the bushes, but as the humans fall in a heap on the ground, Darlene is less than satisfied. She doesn’t even need a tape measure to know these humans are much too small to eat. It’s against arachnocode rule 23: all humans consumed must be over five feet tall, fully grown, preferably after the average age of spawning. Otherwise, spiderkind may accidentally depopulate their food source, and that’s just no way to live. Darlene doesn’t want to go back to the old days when humans were less plentiful. It had been horrid and too much work.

“Grunkle Stan! How are you on this fine, um, day?” says the middle one as the small human females scramble upright and attempt to look innocent. Darlene approves of deception in general, but not of people being terrible at it. The girl goes on to say, “We were just around. Here.”

“Scram, strange children who I definitely don’t know,” her prey says.

Darlene quite agrees. The small humans do not.

“He is just using you like he taught Dipper to do,” says the even tinier human to Darlene. “It’s not true love.”

“There, there,” booms the voice of the other human. “Darlene is wiser than us. She will not fall for deception.”

“There’s no deception going on here,” her prey quickly replies. “We’re just out for a tour of Widow’s Peak. Now, if you’d just—”

“Join you? Of course!” The small human bounds up to Darlene’s prey and stares at him with big eyes. “Please, Grunkle Stan? Candy is still sad and it’s your fault for teaching Dipper your moves.”

Her prey sighs. Inwardly, Darlene does too. There goes her meal.

“Would you like to join us on our tour, pretty lady?” Stan asks, getting up with a great deal of reluctance.

Darlene’s first instinct is to say no, but this _is_ more entertaining than sitting at the ticket booth. Perhaps she can even get Stan alone at the end of it all. “I’ll lead the tour. Come along, small human children. Our first stop is the museum, where I’ll introduce you to my mummies.”

Reluctantly, Darlene even learns all the humans’ names as she gives them a tour of Mystery Mountain. For humans, they’re not horrible. The girls are over-excitable, but with the way they glare at Dipper once the last of the humans in their group joins them, they would’ve made excellent arachnimorphs in another life. The way they compliment the wrapping of her mummies also doesn’t hurt.

“You could wrap me up any time,” Stan tells her as they reach the end of the tour through the museum, wiggling his rather attractive eyebrows. They’re not as good as a spider’s hairs, but still not bad.

“A pity you can’t sneak away from the kids, handsome,” Darlene replies, her hooded gaze ruined by the small humans’ many questions about why the banner says _new mummies daily_. To the small humans, she says, “I mummify anyone who gets on my bad side.”

“Ooh,” say the girls, looking over at an uneasy-looking Dipper.

Darlene pats their little heads. She only has two human hands, but she makes do. They’re not horrible, for humans, and neither is Stan. He’s still the kind of man she abhors, all pick-up artistry and sleazy charm, but he’s amusing and he can be sweet. He cares for the small humans in his own way. Humans don’t eat their young, but they do abandon them if needed. This one hasn’t done so even though the small humans aren’t his direct spawn.

As night falls, Darlene walks them back to the main entrance. They’re all still alive, and a part of her thinks it odd, while the rest of her is alright with that. Mabel tells her she has faith in their true love before she gets into the van, the others chiming in with more or less agreement. Darlene doesn’t tell her that love is a very human concept, one she’s only read about in the occasional romance novel she picks up to study wooing techniques.

“Visit me at the Mystery Shack,” Stan calls as he starts up the van and gives her a wave. “I’ll even give you a discount!”

As she leans against the ticket booth and watches the van drive off, Darlene has an odd feeling in her chest. It’s probably just hunger, she tells herself. What else is there for it to be?

The phone in the ticket booth rings. It’s the red one, the one whose number only those in the know have.

“We’re trashing the Mystery Shack,” Granny Sweetkin yells into her ear, sounding terribly angry. “Are you in?”

Darlene smiles, taking a look at the lone new visitor who’s pulled up to the mountain. “I just need to get a snack in, then I’ll be there.”

Eating Stan has lost its appeal for whatever reason, but she’s not about to turn down an invitation. As the visitor nears the ticket booth, staring only at her ample breasts, Darlene decides he’ll make the perfect gift. Stan and his small humans did so enjoy her mummies.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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